Mayawati cancels Rahul’s interaction with students in Kanpur

Kanpur, Oct 24 (IANS) The Uttar Pradesh government Friday cancelled Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s interaction with students at a university here.Gandhi, who is on a daylong visit to Uttar Pradesh, was supposed to meet students at the Chandra Shekhar Azad Agriculture University (CSAAU) here. However, Vice Chancellor Vinod Kumar Suri was told to cancel the programme.

“We were told by the administration that his programme has been cancelled. When we told Gandhi, he said he would go to the university to meet the students despite the government’s order,” an official at the university told IANS.

Gandhi, who landed here at 10 a.m., did not hold the interaction but met students while strolling through the campus. The university is holding its annual convocation Friday and state Governor T.V. Rajeswar is slated to visit here late afternoon.

Union Minister of State for Home and Kanpur MP Sri Prakash Jaiswal, who was accompanying Gandhi, said: “I got a call from Vice-Chancellor Vinod Kumar Suri this morning asking us not to come since the government had cancelled the programme, but we have still come.”

Gandhi, who represents Amethi in the Lok Sabha, is also scheduled to attend a Dalit convocation.

“On verbal instructions of the government, the programme was forcibly cancelled. Security was removed abruptly just to ensure that Rahul could not meet the students,” said an angry state Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi.

Less than a fortnight ago, the Mayawati led state government cancelled United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s function to kick off a rail coach factory in her constituency in Rae Bareli. The government cancelled the land allotment to the factory Oct 12, barely two days before the function.

It also imposed orders prohibiting the assembly of more than four persons in the entire area to prevent Sonia Gandhi from holding a public rally.

The state government had last week given the land back to the railways.